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Article: Sixteenth Amendment
- Article from:
- Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History
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SIXTEENTH AMENDMENT
Proposed in Congress on July 12, 1909, and ratified February 3, 1913, the Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives the federal government (specifically, the U.S. Congress) authority to levy and collect income taxes. The amendment states that incomes may be taxed "from whatever sources derived" and without regard to population. In other words, it is up to Congress to determine the level at which citizens of the country are taxed, and this may be done without apportionment among the individual states.
One hundred years before the Sixteenth Amendment was approved, Congress had begun eyeing income tax as a way to collect funds for government use. Lawmakers ...